A Little Girl

As I have watched Peter growing up, Mike and I have been amazed at his fearless attitude. Nothing seems to scare that kid - he's never been afraid of the dark, talking in front of people, making new friends, heights, speed, nothing. Not even several visits to the Instacare and stitches have seemed to hinder him much. Then, along came our darling girl, Elsie.
Elsie is a girl just as Peter is a boy. Every day, she wants to wear a frilly dress, sparkly shoes, and will color and cut-up paper for hours. Just as Peter makes great sound effects for bombs, jets, and machine guns; Elsie makes great sounds for horses, fake laughter and cries, and babies. When Peter plays, he needs good guys and bad guys. When Elsie plays, she needs mommies and babies. I am amazed at the differences between the two.
What's been interesting to me lately is all of Elsie's fears. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised - I was afraid of the dry-wall splotches on my wall growing up, as well as the tooth fairy. Anyhow, here are a few examples. When Elsie hears any kind of rumble, she looks at me with panic and asks, "What was that?"
If I don't have a good enough answer or imply that it might be thunder, she bolts for the house at top speed, yelling, "I don't want to get zapped!" All the while urging the rest of us to follow.
She's also afraid of spiders. Last night I heard her crying in her room, when she was supposed to be sleeping. Annoyed, I went downstairs to tell her to quit whining. When I get there, Peter informs me she's crying because she's afraid of poisonous spiders. OKAY. I reassure her she is very safe in our house, that moms and dads and babysitters are here to protect her. Unconsoled, she responded, "But Mom, they have secret ways of getting in!"
I even have a hard time getting her to play outside sometimes because she's afraid of bees and wasps getting her. Today, she pointed out a fly in our house and said, "A bee was coming to get me, and that fly came and protected me!"
A couple days ago, after a bit of coaxing from me and one of her friends, she decided to go on a bike ride. We donned on her helmet, and she was about ready to take off, when she looked up at me and said, "Mom, will you protect us from PREDATORS?"
I tried not to laugh and said, "Sure."
It's a whole new ballgame - boys versus girls. Sometimes I wonder why we even try to compete with each other. We are such different beings, and that's okay.

Poddy Power!

Well, a couple weekends ago, Mike and I broke down. The cat wasn't using the litter box, so we were cleaning up poop all over the house. This added to our own begrudges of having two little ones in diapers. Elsie was old
enough - past old enough - and we finally put our foot down. Saturday morning we told her, "Nooooo more diapers!" She cried and threw a big fit for about 20 minutes, and then, that was it! For the rest of the day, we hung out at home, reading books and playing in the bathroom. Mike even set-up our portable DVD player in the bathroom and she watched a poddy training moving about having "poddy power!".
The past few months, Mike and I had tried everything to instill in Elsie the desire to do her dirty work in the toilet. This was to no avail. However, once she did her business, she remembered clearly all our bribery. First, she got a cute stuffed animal (Kimball almost got this one, which did help her motivation. We told her whoever went poop on the poddy first, got it. When we started putting Kimball on the poddy and he started grunting, she was frantic). That afternoon we all went to the ice cream shop - and got huge ice cream servings with sprinkles on top.
Elsie loves to be read to on the poddy, but we were all tired of reading to her, so she talked Kimball into reading to her. I thought this was pretty cute!

Now that Elsie wears underwear, she thinks she's all grown up . She tries to pour her own milk, shampoo her own hair, and anything else grown-ups can think of, because in her mind, she has arrived!
I am happy to report, Elsie's doing fairly well, and "cat" is doing great also, thanks to Kitten Attract litter! Ahhh, it feels good.

Little Grey/Princess/Tiger/Chelvin/Sophie

I'm not sure what her name is, even after 3 weeks, but we got a kitten! It all started with school. Peter came home with news of a girl in his class whose cat had baby kittens, and she was giving them away. As soon as Elsie found out, it was an off and on plea for days - could they please please please get a cat? I'm pretty sure they expected the answer to be no, but I had an empty spot in my heart since Peter started school all day. I talked to Mike, and although he really didn't want a cat, he said I could do what I wanted. I snuck out one evening and came home with this little kitten. She is so cute! The kids were very surprised and very excited! It was such a fun evening!
I have been really surprised over how much Kimball loves this kitten. He hoards her, choking her and torturing her in the process. The first night he cried himself to sleep yelling, "My cat, my cat!" because he wanted to sleep with her.
Elsie makes the kitten dance with her, swinging her around everywhere, and sometimes she holds her front paws and makes her do her own solo dance routine.
Peter is pretty good to her though, and claims her right when he gets home from school. This kitten is the most good-natured pet ever, and we all love her. However, we can't decide on a name. We all call her by a different name. I'll let you know when it's officially decided - if it ever is.

1st Grade

My oldest boy started 1st grade. The morning was kind of funny. He had been dying to wear his new clothes, but on the 1st day, for some reason, he picked his worn out pants and year old t-shirt. Who knows, maybe it was something he felt more comfortable in. So, as he headed to class (in his old clothes and long hair), he refused to let us take any pictures. After some coaxing and examples of other kids, Peter let us take a quick shot or two - neither of which were great. Oh well.
He liked his first day, and he still is liking school. He is really excited about math and is asking for extra problems to do on the weekends. He's making new friends and having a fun time.
He has a very small class, currently only16 kids! He also has 2 teachers - one teaches English in the morning and the other math in the afternoon. So far, he loves the set-up. Peter loves to meet new people. One of the few people he knew in his class moved out after a week or so. I asked Peter if that made him sad. He looked kind of perplexed and asked me, "Why Mom??? I already knew him."
Peter sees strangers as an adventure, never a deterrent.
I've also been having a hard time getting him to eat his lunch, because he has figured out that the sooner he finishes, the longer of a recess he has. It only took one day. On the second day of school he said, "Mom, it's great. You can get hot lunch, only eat one bite and throw the rest away, and then you can go outside and play!!" Whoa, hold on there bud! Just today he told me he didn't want a treat in his lunch box because he didn't have time to eat it. He says he's got to hurry so he can go play spy during recess. I guess he's having a fun time!

Highlight #5 - Yellowstone!

Our family went camping at Yellowstone the last week of Peter's summer vacation. We had a blast! However, I wouldn't call it relaxing - camping with 3 young kids. We did make some great memories and had a lot of fun though. I have included a ton of pictures. Keep in mind, this is our families book of records as well. As our kids get older, I'm going to need proof that we do have fun and do fun things.
As we all know, packing up for camping and coming home from camping are all part of the experience of camping. For the adults, it's a lot of work (and kind of stinky). For the kids, getting ready is very exciting! Peter, Elsie, and Kimball ran around in these life-jackets we scrounged for a couple days. They even wore them to the library!

To get them excited about the animals we were going to look for, I made buffalo sugar cookies. We all had fun frosting them. Kimball really caught on to the frosting part. They were fun to eat on those many drives around Yellowstone.

Since this blog is about trying to remember the happy memories our family makes, I won't bother to talk about our drive to Yellowstone, but we were all really excited once we finally got there. We stayed in the campsite Canyon, and loved it. While there we drove along Hayden Valley and Lamar Valley, in search of wildlife. We also went to Mud Volcano and saw lots of neat stuff. The kids were fascinated! We saw lots of wildlife, as these pictures can attest.

There are almost a dozen elk behind the kids, if you squint a little. They (the kids, not the elk) are all in their pajamas. The hope was they would eventually fall asleep as we drove back to our campsite that evening. It worked!

Here's a buffalo we saw about 2 feet from our car. I rolled down my window a smidgen and quickly took this picture. Although they're not typically dangerous, a 1 ton animal isn't something I'm willing to test much luck with. My heart was pumpin'.

These buffalo were hangin' out at the Mud Volcanoes, rolling in the dirt, and keeping each other company.

We saw herds of buffalo in Lamar Valley, right up against and on the road. This was really fun for the kids. We saw baby buffalo, mommy buffalo, and even a couple male buffaloes fighting. That was exciting.

While in Lamar Valley we saw a couple coyotes and a wolf. Apparently, the official wolf expert in Yellowstone stopped by and told us we were watching the Alpha Wolf himself. This was more fun for the adults, but the kids had a hard time getting excited looking for animals through binoculars. After this trip, the kids had it with looking for more animals.

This is how we bribed Elsie to get out of the car to look at animals towards the end - she could bring her coloring. That girl loves to color!

This buck was just wandering through our campsite. He's staring me down in this picture.

A huge elk lounging along the side of the road

A bald eagle. This was one of the highlights for Peter. He's fascinated with them right now.

Between the sugar cookies and these we ate in the car, it's no wonder Mike took a hose to the inside of our car when we came home. It was SOOOO filthy! Half way through our trip we moved camp to Grant Village. This was closer to the Southern part of Yellowstone. Now onto geysers and hot pots!

The Famous Old Faithful! This is never a disappointment.

In the top picture, one must note the sling shot in Peter's hand. All the kids got one as their souvenir. There were rocks and pine cones flying all around our campsite. Peter packed it everywhere. He was on a true adventure! At first, Elsie was afraid of the steam in the hot pots. I don't blame her - the heat and stink is a little unnerving. She eventually got to where she was excited about them though. By the later half of our trip, Kimball was really excited about hot pots and geysers. Every 10 seconds Mike or I were getting whacked by Kimball trying to get our attention as he pointed in a direction and said excitedly, "Water, Water, Water!"

When I told Elsie I was going to take a picture, she got into the pose above. Where did she learn to do that? Just a pretty picture below.

We went on Uncle Tom's Hike, recommended to us by a good neighbor. This was fun for the kids, and included 258 steps (or something like that). Peter felt really tough hiking the hole thing - he was pretty proud of himself. By the end Kimball was tired of being in the backpack, and Elsie wanted to be carried. The scenery was beautiful though and well worth it!

Peter and his dad even managed to squeeze in a couple fishing trips.

During this time Elsie, Kimball and I became expert rock throwers.
Next: Hanging out at the Campsite. I think this was the kids's favorite.

Breakfast - already they're a mess!

We had to watch Kimball close by the fire. He wanted to do everything Peter and his dad were doing. I'm raising some boy scouts, for sure. We really enjoyed our smores in the evenings!


We played tag and we all had special powers we ran around with that Peter and Elsie assigned everyone. It was a lot of fun.

On the way home we stopped in Jackson and walked around for a bit. It was nice, but we were really glad to get home to a clean house.

Highlight #4 - Peter's Birthday!

It's about time I blogged about this one! I really look forward to Peter's birthday because summer birthday parties are SOOOO fun for me to plan! This year Peter turned 6, and wanted an owl birthday party. Owls do have some amazing powers, but it took some serious brain storming and internet surfing to figure out how to pull this one off. It all worked out in the end.
I had a long time friend of mine come over and help me keep things organized. She's a great teacher, so she was well practiced and lots of help! As we waited for all the kids to come, we played a rousing game of "owl, owl, mouse" (aka duck, duck, goose).

While I was at my mom's house, she and her friend collected owl pellets for Peter's party, so they had real owl pellets to dissect! Isn't that cool?? It was a treasure hunt trying to uncover those little bones and such. Some kids found some cool stuff and insisted on keeping them in their bags. I wondered what their moms said when they came home with them.

Afterwards, they practiced their owl abilities and looked for pellets (or easter eggs). Inside they found lots of candy and plastic insects and small animals. It was fun watching them!

After doing such a good job on their hunt, as all owls do, they earned their owl costumes. I spent too much time sewing these things together, but they turned out sooo cute, I decided it was worth it.

I had another hunting game for them to play, and then they went inside where I had huge furniture boxes connected together. They all found a good "nesting" spot and listened to Renee read Owl Moon by Jane Yolen while I got the cake and ice cream ready. I love this book - the pictures are great and the story is classic!! Below are the owl cupcakes. Aren't they fun?!

Last of all were the presents to open. Peter really made out! He got balls, squirt guns, transformers, stuff to do outside, and other stuff. The pictures below are a couple of the presents.

This next one Becca made for him. He sleeps with it every night. It's gone camping with us twice, and is in need of a trip to the dry cleaners.


After all this excitement, you'd think that was enough, but no. Then he got a party at the family reunion as well. Everyone was so good to remember him, I was touched. We gave him a load of Bakugans, which he loved. It's always tricky getting the perfect present. Grandma gave him some weights, and now he thinks he is so tough now, and Grammy gave him a cute board game called Hoot Owl Hoot. Everyone was so generous, and he have had a ton of fun!
Peter is a great 6-year-old. He is a bundle of energy, eager to please and do the right thing. He loves rules and structure. He really likes to be tough (when it's convenient) and even looks forward to getting shots, so he can prove how tough he is. He loves the outdoors - hiking, climbing trees, and swinging on our swings. Peter is a great friend, and loves to meet new people. Just recently 1 of the few boys he knew in his 1st grade class moved to another class. I asked him if that made him sad a little. He looked at me perplexed and said, "Why Mom? I already knew him."
I am impressed with his eagerness to learn. Peter loves to read and memorize things. At church he takes great pride in knowing the answers. He loves to answer questions. When he asks me a question and I say, "I don't know." He says in dissatisfaction, "Just give it your best guess, Mom." He is a great big brother and a great example. As parents, Mike and I are soooo proud of him!

Highlight #3 - Reunions

This summer Mike and I's families both had reunions. Mike's was camping for the 4th of July weekend. Because we were camping, the shorter time, and a ton of kids running around, our arms were full and the thought of a camera didn't even surface our minds. Hence, we have no documentation of this grand reunion. However, it was a lot of fun. We celebrated 2 birthdays - Peter's and his cousin, attended another cousin's baptism, chased kids, went boating, cooked great food, and lit off and watched fireworks. Fun was had by all.
The reunion for my family lasted about 9 days. The evening before it happend Mike had a catastrophe at work. He worked a full 24 hours, and still couldn't resolve the issue. I had a sister that drove to our house so we could carpool together to my parent's house for the reunion. I was glad she had, because I ended up leaving without Mike, with the kids and Michelle. Mike's work paid for him to fly up a few days later, when the dust had settled a bit. Poor Mike, it was really stressful, but everything has worked out okay. Anyhow, the 10 hour ride with 3 kids in the car was a work-out in and of itself. Once we got there, it was fun to see everyone and be involved in all the happenings.

To begin, a lot of this (above picture) took place. These 2 little cousins were inseparable! They played and played and made the biggest messes. They would disappear for a while, and then resurface every now and then. One time we found them in Poppy's and Grammy's shower with all the matchbox cars at their feet. Those two.....

This was another ongoing project, with my 10-year-old nephew as the catalyst. Actually, he and his dad did 90% of the work. It sure was deep! Mike is standing on a little ledge inside the hole. It was probably 5 foot deep in all - which was huge for the kids! This is also one of the few shots of Peter. He was busy as well running around with his 3 boy cousins. That kid sure played hard!

Ahhhh - swimming. This was a lot of fun! Thank's to my mom's sweet friend who lent us her pool!

And of course, what would a trip to the country be without a horse-back ride? Elsie really liked this - doesn't her face show that?

My mom put together a rather involved obstacle coarse that involved water and swings. It was fun to watch the kids try to run through the pool. Mike, the last one to finish it up, added some extra moves. He reminds me of Superman!

Meanwhile, my dad put together a rather complex treasure hunt. He had these kids shooting BB guns, putting puzzles together, digging in the dirt while trying to dodge the sprinkler circle, and all sorts of stuff. It was a riot! The treasure at the end? ICE CREAM!

This is a picture of my nephew holding up his homemade "Title of Liberty". It relates to a Book of Mormon story during a time when there was a lot of feuding among the people. A man named Moroni "rent" his cloak and wrote on it all the things he felt were worth protecting, even to the extent of fighting for. So, the cousins got to tear an old shirt and write their personal beliefs they were willing to fight for as well. Way to go!

Apparently, when there happened to be down time, the cousins all banned together and shot Nerf guns at their defenseless Aunt Rachel, just as this picture shows! They weren't provoked or anything!

I had to include this picture because I thought it was hilarious as all 20 of us were trying to fish along a 50' long bank. It was a bit scary and tiresome - little kids flinin' poles, lines getting snagged, and no one was dressed warm enough for that cold morning. Not to mention a few slides and falls in the mud! Needless to say, the fishing only lasted 45 minutes or so. No fish were caught. Better luck next time!


Swing, batter batter, Swing! Grammy puts together a great pinata! Lots of toys and candy - we really appreciated them as distractions on the car ride home. Thanks mom!

Here's the frantic gathering of the loot!

And what would a family reunion be without cheesy matching tie-dye shirts and a photo at the end!!! It was great - thanks Mom and Dad for all the hard work and the wonderful hospitality. Can't wait for 2013!